Chapter Text
[The video picks up with a faintly shaking frame, indicating a handheld camera. The image shows a girl standing on a well-lit street at night. Against the cold shown by her cloudy breath, she‘s huddled into a scarf, gloves and a puffy jacket, while her long curls cover her ears. She‘s illuminated from above by a streetlamp she‘s leaning against.]
„Hi guys!“ [She waves energetically with one gloved hand and a grin.] „We know we said we wouldn‘t post for a while because my cameraman had to audacity to get sick in the middle of fall. How dare he.“
„How very fucking dare I?“ [The new voice from behind the camera is muffled, but laden with sarcasm.] „As if a cold can‘t just be walked off. Which is what I‘m doing.“
[The girl leans in and whispers.] „He‘s just exaggerating, if it were any bad he wouldn‘t be let out for how long this will take. Also great job swearing in the first ten seconds.“
„I‘m going to sneeze on you.“
„But…!“ [The girl straightens up again and smiles as if she hadn‘t heard the threat.] „He was cleared because any longer and he would‘ve started running laps around his room. So! We‘re here. Here being…“
[She turns with a dramatic swooping motion to show a treeline at the end of the street. It‘s barely visible against the streetlamp light and underlying darkness. The camera follows, accompanied by a fitting swoosh sound by the cameraman.]
„… the Lost Woods! And yeah, just a walk here might count as scary, but we‘re not after scary.“
„Maybe an idea for Halloween.“
[The girl gestures in a ‚yeah-sure‘ way.] „Maybe. But today, today we‘re here for a specific site in these woods.“
[She waves the camera to follow her as she starts walking - clearly, her legs started to freeze and she wants to move around a bit.] „A bit of historical context first, as always. All of you, well, most of you know about the Seven Sages, Ganon, Princess Zelda and Link. It‘s a chapter in every history course in Hyrule schools, and somehow every city and river and important figure is related to them. Everyone knows someone who‘s named after one of these people.“
„We‘re the only exceptions in our friend group, aren‘t we?“
„Goddesses, yeah.“
„Lucky us.“
„Stop interrupting me. Well, the Seven Sages, a group of priests a few centuries ago that served directly under the princess and managed temples and festivals and similar, they were kidnapped at the start of Ganon‘s invasion into Hyrule. He didn‘t demand ransom for them, so it‘s usually assumed that he either wanted to intimidate the enemy or prevent them from using overly destructive weapons on his strongholds, which is were he kept them.“
„Allegedly in magical crystals. Like one of those mosquitoes trapped in amber.“
„I‘d believe the crystal thing before I believe that a guy turns to stone after being stabbed in the head. One of those things, sure, but both? That‘s overkill.“
„Cause the supernatural is rational enough to save its powers.“
[The girl throws the cameraman a deadpan. He stops talking after a giggle.]
„Anyway, one of those strongholds that once held one of the Sages is in the Lost Woods. If you‘ve seen pictures of a big staircase leading into the ground with carved skulls around, that‘s the main entrance. Back then, it was still called the Skull Woods, but people didn‘t like living directly next to those, so Lost Woods it is. Sounds more whimsical, anyway.“
[She takes a breath and then continues as the background slowly becomes populated with barren trees and bushes.] „But that‘s only part of why this one has the reputation it does. The other part is who exactly it imprisoned at the time: Seres, a nun since her childhood and the daughter of a priest. Sure, all Sages were part of the religion around Hylia, but she was especially associated with it and the first to be taken. The outrage around her capture was especially great, there were even attempts to break her out by mobs. Not that any were successful, we‘d know.“
[The girl looks forward and lets out a sigh before the camera is handed to her, shaking vision showing a gravel path, the night sky and worn winter boots.] „Alright, that‘s the history part. Now for the actual ghost we‘re here for.“
[The camera rights itself and is directed at the former cameraman, a young adult with choppy dark hair and a comparatively light hoodie and jacket. He gestures as he speaks, never quite looking at the lens, but comfortable with monologuing by himself.] „Leave it to the skeptic to research this part. Anyway, about a hundred years after the invasion, when Seres was long dead - and not buried around here, by the way, she‘s in the cemetery of the temple she worked at - there were excavations of the stronghold. Y‘know, they wanted to haul out whatever might be valuable and shit. And that‘s when the first reports of spooks happened.“
„You‘re so irreverent about this.“
„They‘re all dead, they don‘t care anymore.“
„What if a relative watches or something?“
„They knew what video they were clicking on!“
„Fair enough. Continue.“
„Thank you, oh wise one. So, what happened was that some people would start seeing a nun in the same cell everyday, presumably where Seres was held. She‘d be standing at the door and just look. Apparently her face wasn‘t visible, but there‘s one guy that said he heard praying. That thing never really did anything, but there‘s a lot of sightings from that time since. The praying‘s been heard in the entire underground structure, though, not just that cell. There‘s a channel that tried to decipher just what it‘s supposed to say, they even got a medium, but nothing.“
„… Well, at least there‘s little risk of bodily harm.“
„I wanna say that that was clear from the beginning, but there‘s a lot of other kinds of harm, y‘know?“
„You‘re not making this better.“
„Not what I‘m here for.“ [He grins, showing his teeth, but their banter is interrupted by their arrival at their destination. She angles the camera to take in the hills of leaves while he brushes some off of a stone structure with his foot. It turns out to be a small statue of an eroded skull.] „That‘s… underwhelming. Ew, there‘s a spider in there.“
„Leave it alone, Shadow! It didn‘t do anything to you.“ [She snorts before waving him along to a staircase leading into what the lens can only register as darkness. It‘s illuminated once two bright flashlight beams hit the dust-carpeted cobbled floor.] „Save your energy for what‘s in there.“
[The two quiet down after some mocking imitation by Shadow. The rustling of the leaves inder their feet is quickly replaced by soles on stone, first flat, then gradually growing in echo. After roughly fifty seconds of exploration with no more words than exchanged sounds of apprehensive awe, Erune gestures Shadow from behind the camera to take it over again.] „So we‘re in the stronghold proper now, maybe fifteen meters underground. So far it was thankfully pretty uneventful, just a few steps of a hallway that I honestly thought would be bigger. Maybe that would‘ve been too much effort to build? But, anyway, look at this.“
[The camera turns to something only discernable once Erune points her flashlight at it: a door made of rusted metal bars, barely hanging in its hinges anymore. The microphone picks up a quiet laugh while Erune wavers before it.] „I mean, can we even move that? It‘s not gonna crash to the floor if we do, right?“
„We‘ve been here for barely five minutes, just step through. No need to touch anything, Goddesses.“
[Cut to a much darker environment, where Erune‘s face seemingly floats in the air as she‘s hit by the camera‘s light from the side. She shows a nervous smile before turning back forward, playing with her scarf. Shadow directs to what she‘s looking at while she laughs shakily.] „Okay, this is genuinely creepy. Not the worst we‘ve seen so far, but Goddesses.“
[A long hallway is visible, lined by rows of door openings that are shown by the bars and rotting straw to once have been cells. From somewhere, the sound of dripping is audible.]
„Just imagine having to stay in one of these for days. Not even weeks, just days.“
„Wait-“ [The camera swivels around as Shadow shouts out in a mix of surprise and excitement.] „Was that a rat?“
„Wouldn‘t surprise me. Oh Hylia, do you think they were here back then, too? Do you think…?“
„What, that they ate the prisoners? Maybe. At least the ones that were just left here after the invasion. Hey, if they were lucky, they starved to death before the rats.“
„Why do I take you along to these things? You make everything worse.“
„Because nobody else wants to. Honestly, I just thought the rats add to the fantasy vibes of the place. Around the corner there‘s a living skeleton in armour just lying in wait, y‘know?“
„And if we die it‘s fine because we‘ll just respawn at the entrance. Sure.“
„Exactly. Let‘s just continue. The people need their ghost footage, we‘re doing important work here!“